


forfeiture

by alesford



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Broken Families, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Families of Choice, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Season 3 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 12:55:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16242065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesford/pseuds/alesford
Summary: They all make sacrifices. Each and every one of them.Nobody escapes unchanged or unscathed. They wear their scars like constellations etched into their flesh and bones, telling a story of love and loss through stars contrasted against the dark night sky.There is no once upon a time or happily ever after.





	forfeiture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [comelayinmybed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comelayinmybed/gifts).



> This is based on an idea thrown out there during a Tea & Biscuits. I plan for it to be a two-parter. With this first part being whatever it is and the second part hopefully being more _me_. (You’ll see what I mean?)
> 
> Blame Kat Barrell for this one.

 

 

They all make sacrifices. Each and every one of them.

 

Nobody escapes unchanged or unscathed. They wear their scars like constellations etched into their flesh and bones, telling a story of love and loss through stars contrasted against the dark night sky.

 

There is no once upon a time or happily ever after.

 

The story started like this:

There once were three sisters named Willa, Wynonna, and Waverly. They lived with their mother and father on a homestead outside of a little town named Purgatory, and it was an existence far from the fairytales of picture books and nighttime fables.

Two little girls laughed and loved. Their father showed them love by showing them the dangers of the world. He taught them to shoot. He taught them to fight. He taught them to be wary.

He taught them not to flinch at a raised hand or voice.

He chiseled them into inheritors of a curse and a legacy with bitter words and harsh stares that were fueled as much as they were dampened by the bottle.

He taught them to be hard and sharp.

He loved them. In his own way. As fucked up as it was.

Two little girls laughed and loved because they were loved by their mother and their father. They laughed and loved because they had each other. Willa was Ward’s and Wynonna was Michelle’s.

One little girl stayed. She stayed quiet and present. She tried to show all of them her love, and sometimes, on the best of days, she would find it reflected back to her.

In the fields behind the house with Wynonna whispering nonsense in her ear. With a tiny vanilla cake and the words, _Happy birthday, Waverly,_ in pink frosting and her mama singing softly to her. Uncle Curtis playing the piano with her at his knee.

One little girl stayed and she loved them all, even if Willa was Ward’s and Wynonna was Michelle’s and Waverly was nobody’s.

There were three sisters and a mother and a father, who lived on a homestead in Alberta.

A fire. Red and blue lights. Tragedy.

There were three sisters and a father, who lived in a broken home in Purgatory.

The Seven. Shattered windows and a gunshot. Tragedy.

There were two sisters and an aunt and uncle, who lived in a house that wasn’t the homestead.

Truancy. Rebellion. Tragedy. More tragedy. And then some more.

Wynonna. Then Curtis.

 

(The Universe laughs at people named Earp. It takes away the things they love most and replaces them with a hollowness in the space between their ribs. It leaves them empty. It leaves them nothing.)

 

The story continues like this:

There are two sisters who share a last name and an emptiness in their chests that still somehow feels like the weight of the world upon their hearts.

One sister stays in the quirky town called Purgatory. She finds something akin to _kin_ in the people of the community. She works at a bar and dates the same boy from high school and hides a wall of weird behind ugly curtains and an IKEA clothes’ rack. One sister stays and wishes to inherit a legacy and a curse that was never meant to be her burden.

And then—

One sister returns and inherits a legacy and a curse that was never meant to be her burden. It’s a path to redemption that she has never wanted. There is no hero’s journey for Wynonna Earp.

Except when there is.

There are more important things in life than her own self-imposed exile and a duty she’s more than ready to shirk. There’s a more important person.

She has always known this, but each and every day — every hour, every minute, every second — that she spends with Waverly reinforces a singular principle to which she holds fast and steady.

Her little sister is her everything and she will do anything to keep her safe. Family — _real_ family —  comes first.

This is the hill that she is willing to die on.

She saves her sister. Her sister saves her. They fight resurrected revenants and witches and demons. They find their vengeance and their salvation in Wyatt Earp’s gun with the help of an old cowboy and a Deputy Marshal from south of the border.

There are two sisters until there are three.

Until there are two again.

A gate. A demon. A dead sister.

Wynonna mourns with her arms around a stuffed animal in a room that smells like Shaladelle.

Waverly mourns with her arms around a woman named Nicole Haught in a place that’s finally starting to feel like home again, even with a demon crowing in her ear.

There are two sisters, a cowboy, a Deputy Marshal, a cop, and a scientist.

 

It isn’t the start of a bad joke.

 

They take down more revenants and exorcise an ancient goo demon. Life altering things happen. It’s life, after all. They find their groove until _nine months_ becomes _any day now_ and the sense of urgency turns _“Oh shit!”_ into _“Oh shit!”_ times infinity plus additional profanity.

Nicole almost dies again. Wynonna is erased from existence. They kill two sister-wives with a trick shot that defies the laws of physics and common sense. In the process, the demon sheriff that started it all is unleashed.

 

The story doesn’t end well.

 

Dolls dies. Doc becomes a vampire. Mama comes and goes and leaves her daughters heartbroken once more. Nicole almost gets alcohol poisoning again and it’s almost as if Wynonna isn’t a good influence when it comes to imbibing with her sister’s girlfriend.

Bulshar rallies the revenants. Fealty. Wynonna rallies the revenants Bul-shit.

Waverly meets her father and loses him within the hour.

And then the Garden opens and Bulshar is gone but so is Waverly. Doc goes after her. Wynonna stays.

Nicole, Jeremy, and Robin are kidnapped.

There is one sister and a retired sheriff with a bad Hawaiian shirt and a shotgun racked and ready to go.

 

This is how the story ends.

Except it isn’t.

Life is not a fairytale. It isn’t a story in a book with a clean beginning and tidy ending. It’s messy with A plots and B plots and C plots that might as well be a child’s scribbled squiggles in colorful crayon because who knows which is what and what goes where.

This isn’t a story with once upon a time or happily ever after.

But fuck it all if that’s how all of this ends.

 

(It isn’t.

Don’t worry.)  
  



End file.
